Originally Posted by
freshstart57 
ALinNS, hope you are weathering the weather today OK, my sister just left by air for Halifax, it's looking a little iffy.
I found the most effective way to battle my urges, to fight the AV, was not to fight it at all. I find that giving it my full attention with as little emotional involvment as possible to be very effective. Mindfulness or awareness, they mean the same thing to me. By doing this, staring it, I can see it for what it is. It isn't anything more than the leftover of a previous physical and psychological dependency. It isn't real in the sense that it has no real power to influence my actions. My rational mind has the ultimate control simply because I say so. I have decided I deserve to be sober and that I am going to stay sober, and that is the end of it. Those days of misery and shame and guilt and depression and anger are all in the past for me.
I recovered, and you can be recovered too, Andrew. You got this one. Onward!
I agree but I need help in some areas, victim of a pedophile at the age of 13, witnessed a you couple who just became married killed in front of me in a car crash by a drunk driver (I was working at a gas station on the highway and had just filled their car) followed home from a bank I worked at and stabbed in the back.....when my mind becomes weak from being tired and working too many hours, I start having flashbacks in my dreams and sometimes in the day. I need to learn to forgive myself as I was not responsible yet this voice comes and I make the wrong decision, but I will get the help I need and then I can have a happy life because when I am strong such as now they have no impact, just a distant memory. The AV knows when I am weak and it gets pretty bad. Anyhow I know what needs to be done and I will do it and am making great strides.